Former Ziscosteel workers are crying foul over the paltry packages that they were given by the company on September 27, 2019, in RTGS at the exchange rate of 1:1.
They were retrenched in 2016 and the packages were calculated in US dollars, prompting their lawyer, Devias Mujaya of Mujaya and Muchona lawyers to demand that the payments be settled using the interbank rate. Said Mujaya:
It’s not feasible because we can’t have a situation whereby there is a law which says 1:1 yet there is an interbank exchange rate between the two currencies which clearly shows that they are not at par.
Taking the two currencies as being at par is a fallacy and it only serves to prejudice the suffering ex-employees.
The government liberalised the exchange rate at the beginning of this year by abandoning the 1:1 exchange rate between the US dollar and the bond note.
The value of the Zimbabwe dollar has plunged in value, with the exchange rate now at 1:15.